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[Chaos Armor]

Introduction
To those of you who don't have experience playing browser-based city-building game, I've had my fair share of them and I could say this is the best one I've found so far. The greatest thing about the game is the player-base. When you first start out if you so much as get on the Global Chat you will be bombarded by caravans that will help you grow. I can assure you that this is the most troll free community I've ever seen, but like every game or forum there is always a few trolls. But they are not tolerated.

To those of you familiar with Tribal Wars, this game has everything that Tribal Wars has and many more features such as:

1.Military units can be organised into different armies and divisions (with each division being led by a commander who will gain experience through battles) and ordered to attack, blockade, or siege enemy settlements;
2.Many items to research, from brewing (yes!) to being able to build another settlement;
3.Magic, with three different schools: geomancy (self-buffs), blight (curses), and runes;
4.Seasonal cycle, with each season providing different bonus to resources production;
5.Lunar cycle, with each phase providing different bonus to research and magic; and
6.Complete quests in tavern to obtain their rewards.
Nothing could explain this game better than the official guides from the developers:
http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/help_forum9.html

This game is relatively new. The first (and currently only) server has only been online since March 2010.

The developers
The developers are constantly updating the game, with update reports provided to players every now and then. They also actively participate in the forum and the Global Chat, answering questions and taking suggestions to improve the game.

Current dev list:
http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/current-dev-list_topic98.html

Premium account benefits
Like you, I avoid spending money on browser-based games, in which, premium account users may gain unfair advantages over non-premium account users. In this game, premium account benefits are also offered (called Prestige); however, the developers stated clearly that these have been designed carefully to not 'break the game'. IMO, compared to Tribal Wars, the gap between premium and non-premium accounts is relatively small. So, don't worry about not being able to enjoy the game if you don't plan on getting a premium account.

Registration

Here:
http://www.illyriad.co.uk/

Active players from Bay12 (and their Illyriad user names if applicable)


alexwazer
Duuvian
Chaos Armor
Isdar
TomBombadil
RoaryStar
DePaul

Note: Last Updated March 16, 2016

•Please PM me your Illyriad user name if you play but are not included on this list.
•Please PM me in-game or post here if you play the game but have not been invited to the alliance.

Starting tips (only applicable during the protection period)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

By:Aelfric
Set your tax rate to 5-10% (until it says +3 or +5 to revenue) right off the bat on day 1 and then lower it again to 1% (+1 revenue) on day 2. This will boost your resources production at the cost of reduced hourly gold revenue, but you don't need a lot of gold that early in the game. You only need gold to build caravans (10 gold each) and train spearmen (10 gold each), but you only get to build one caravan per one Marketplace level and you won't be training spearmen until day 3. Took me 36 hours to get to that level and I was actively gathering resources on the world map. By that time, I had built 5 caravans and had an excess of 150 gold. To change tax rate: Go to Town Map, Click on Castle, and then Taxation tab.There are resource caches appearing randomly on World Map. The more the number of settlements in the area, the more the number of resource caches. Use your caravans to gather resources off them. If there is a caravan, either someone else's or yours, already gathering the resource when your caravan arrives, the caravan that arrived earlier will be sent home with incomplete load. Be mindful that this may happen to you too.Don't be afraid to have food deficit early on. Raw materials (woods, clay, etc.) are required to construct and upgrade buildings. Food is only required to maintain them (consumed on hourly basis). Therefore, it's more essential to upgrade raw materials production buildings (clay pits, mines, etc.) to get your infrastructure up. You can get away with -5 to -10 food deficit by gathering food off resource caches on World Map using your caravans. Just remember how many hours you have left until the food runs out and send caravans out before that happens.When it comes to upgrading resources production early on, wood is first priority, iron second, stone third, and clay comes last. There are two essential buildings at this stage: Library, to do research, and Marketplace, to build and sent out caravans. Library construction and upgrades need a larger amount of wood relative to other raw materials. Similarly, Marketplace requires more iron. Furthermore, the first military units available to you (basic spearmen) require wood and iron more than other raw materials.
By Akura:
Upgrade your resource buildings early on. This, along with what's harvested from the caravans, should give you a good boost to your early economy. Also that upgrading the Marketplace means you can build more caravans, which helps with collecting and trade.For those planning on dabbling in magic, go with Runes first, and kill runes at that. Fear runes can be overwhelmed (making them entirely useless), but kill runes can reduce an attacking force. Not that you'd have to worry about that so soon.

Note:

•Should you have any other tips, post them and I'll put them here and give you credit. And feel free to criticise the tips I put on the list.
•We are learning by doing. What works in the first three days when you're still under newbie protection may not work afterward. Alliance

We can chat in-game. Go to Options > Chat and enable Alliance Chat.

The Bay12 alliance is called the StA or Slaves to Armok in-game and we are made up of members of the Bay12 force or Dwarf Fortress players and also the Rough Riders who combined with us.

If you have any questions post them here or if you are already in the game PM me.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This introduction was originally made by BuriBuriZaemon and I have recieved permission to copy and modify it.

[Marat]

This alliance is alive and kicking.   We have many new players who are just starting out and several older players who have been here for quite some time.  We have a decent amount of territory in the south of the map consisting of two large islands, a small archipelago, and some coastal cities (there is plenty of room for new players).

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Illyriad, it is an intelligent browser-based city-building game with a far more intelligent player-base than most games in this genre.  Without a doubt, the player-base is amazing.  Experienced players routinely send resources to any of the new players who so much as say hello in the general chat window.  If a new player is attacked, strangers in the general chat will send resources, advice, and possibly even intervene to defend the new player.  As a result, it is best to use discretion when deciding who to attack, steal from, or cast blights upon.

The game is well designed, with interesting trade mechanics and enough depth in the military/espionage system to satisfy DF players.  The developers wanted to create a browser-game with the depth of something like Eve, and one look at the price history screen on the market will show you that they have created something amazing. 

As mentioned previously, buying prestige does not gain anything that you cannot get elsewhere through the game and the benefits of paying are light enough that they do not have much impact on the game (they are just nice perks, though you get a free prestige point every day you log in).

The game has been around for a while, but there has been a huge influx of new players in the past several months and the world map is constantly changing.  While they do not reset the server, new cities are constantly being settled, old cities are captured or razed, and alliances rise and fall.  However, given that the players are more restrained than you would find in most games, wars are much rarer than you would expect. This means that when the wars do occur, they are pretty devastating as everyone has spent quite some in preparation. 

[loose nut]

How time-intensive does this game wind up being, as compared to other games in this genre?

I might be up for it if I don't have to log in several times a day to keep up/ not get wiped by hostiles.

[Chaos Armor]

Well for the first couple of days you might want to log in more than regular because the build times increase exponentially and in the beginning most buildings will take somewhere around 5 minutes. After about a week though you will probably have build times of at least an hour and you can queue two upgrades at a time. Many of them at level 10 will take a day to upgrade to level 11.

Illyriad is the most newb friendly game. Attacking new players is frowned upon, very frowned upon. As for going inactive, if you were at 50 population and you had not grown for a week, the player who was taking an interest in your city had sent you mail and you had not opened it, and you weren't in an alliance, then you might be considered inactive and people could steal from your city at will or capture it. Usually though people looking at a newer player's city would not consider it since newb cities spawn randomly around the world. Also, with that I would say wait two weeks before counting someone as inactive.

It is not a very time intensive game unless you want it to be. I get on usually three or maybe four times a day. It depends on if I have a new city to grow or not.

[Isdar]

I guess i can give it a try. Not like i am losing anything.

[Marat]

Logging in once a day (or even every other day) is fine.  As Chaos mentioned, build times go from being 5 minutes at low levels to 4 days at the highest levels.  So if you are planning to not log in for a while, the trick is just to get a few buildings to high levels early on, so that you can queue up 24-48 hours of building.   I would try to get one resource building up to level 8, then move on to the next resource (rather than upgrading them all evenly). 

Feel free to message any of us in game.  Chaos Armor and I use the same names in game as we do here.  Also, don't forget to introduce yourself as a new player in chat, you will get probably get some resources to give you a kickstart.  Asking directly for resources is frowned upon, so the trick is to ask newbie-sounding questions so that people will check your town's population, realize you are new, and give you presents.  Of course, we would be willing and able to supply you instead as soon as we know who you are.

[Isdar]

So far the game has been fun, and community is really nice too. They even gave me free resources!
Anyway the ingame name is the same as the forum name, and im located at -120|-270. The name of the the town is Hávindr ( a familiar name to people that have played Magicka).

[Chaos Armor]

Yes the players in the game like to send what they call care-a-vans.

[Realmfighter]

My names Realmfighter, I always did love me some browser based games.

[majikero]

Username: Majikero
Location: -293, -37

Wanna join

[Chaos Armor]

I'll send the invites as soon as I can.

[Evilsx]

Name:EvilsPanda
Race:Dwarf
Place:-274, -8

Everyone been kind to me and sending me resources (Thanks if you sent it to me), for now i am going well and trying to get a militery forces up and running

[Chaos Armor]

I didn't send any but I will. I'll also get to the sending out of invites.

[ardesh]

kinda offtopic:

seriously... who still gets excited about those games after there are millions of them around... with 10-20 spawning every day?

[Chaos Armor]

Not trying to start a fight but ten or twenty of them do not start everyday. Most of them are the same though. But this one is different for one because of the awesome world and things they have to keep you interested and for two the players, they are the most helpful I have ever seen in a game and it is newb friendly. Unless you are at 50 pop and have not grown for three weeks then people will not attack you. And if they do all you have to do is get on the constantly moving Global Chat and announce that you were attacked for no reason and people will look into it.

There are many more reasons but suffice to say it is definitely different than most of the games in the genre.